21 August, 21 August 2004, Analysis, Awami League, Bangladesh, grenade attack, Opinion, Politics

The tale of 21 August grenade attack in Bangladesh

Jahanara Nuri 20 August 2025

The crimson monsoon Early rainy season’s subtle steps was felt in the hot, humid afternoon in Dhaka on August 21, 2004. Bangladesh. The sun hung low on the horizon, shadows of people and everything around them stretched long across Dhaka’s bustling Bangabandhu Avenue. The city's pulse beat fervently as thousands convened for the peace rally of Awami League— a party accustomed to the shadow of political strife since 1949-announced its stand against violence. Their rally was initially planned for Muktangon, the venue shifted to the broad crossroads near the Party headquarters after the permission for Muktangon was not available. The megacity's atmosphere mirrored the rally's intent—solemn yet resolute. At the heart of the gathering, Sheikh Hasina, the leader of the Awami League, stood on a truck. Encircled by leaders spanning generations of the party, she addressed the crowd with a voice of steely determination, condemning terrorism and championing justice and democracy. Waves of supporters, brandishing banners and flags, cheered her

on, their hope defying the precarious political climate. At precisely 5:22 PM, the air buzzed with anticipation as Sheikh Hasina concluded her speech with the defiant cry, “Joy Bangla, Joy Bangabandhu.” "I had barely completed my speech and was going to get down from the truck when I heard a big bang and the next moment blood splashed on my body." The ear-splitting explosion of a grenade detonated just yards from Hasina's podium sent a cascade of shrapnel into the crowd and shattered the assembly's energy. Chaos erupted. Screams of terror mingled with the acrid smell of gunpowder as panic swept through the sea of people, scattering them like leaves in a gale. The human and the bulletproof barrier In a swift and seamless motion, leaders around Sheikh Hasina formed a protective human shield with a singular, instinctive resolve, their outstretched arms defying the onslaught and helping her get into the car with security personnel. Time seemed to suspend; the…

Opinion, Politics

Why the Colour Revolution in Bangladesh Lacks Philosophical Legitimacy: A Kantian and Weberian Critique

Robi Das 6 August 2025

We must admit that what happened in July – August 2024 is not a “revolution”. The present government is not a legitimate government and they do have any authority to issue a charter, whatsoever.

6 August 2025

The so-called July 2024 “Colour Revolution” in Bangladesh, which led to the collapse of Sheikh Hasina’s long-standing government and the formation of an interim government, has been widely celebrated as a democratic breakthrough. Yet, from the perspectives of Immanuel Kant, Max Weber, and several contemporary theorists, this revolution raises serious questions about its philosophical and sociological legitimacy. This came to my attention while talking with another author Jahanara Nuri, who has already published an article on this platform after Yunus announced a “July Charter” at the anniversary of the so-called “revolution”. We must admit that what happened in July – August 2024 is not a “revolution”. However, the National Citizens Party (NCP), Bangladesh Jamat-e-Islami (BJI) and its students’ wing Islami Chatra Shibir (ICS), and other Islamist right wing political parties are claiming it as “revolution”, while Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and left-wing political parties are claiming it as “mass uprising” or “resurgence”. The Bangladesh Awami League and its allies are claiming

it as a “coup”, since it is a part of a “meticulous design” as Yunus and his team claimed it. After having this conversation with Jahanara Nuri, I understood that there is a necessity to explain why philosophically this is not a “revolution”. Hence, in this article I have discussed Kant and Weber’s philosophies to explain why this is not a revolution and why the government lacks the legitimacy to declare this July Charter. Kant: Revolution Is Morally Impermissible Immanuel Kant’s political philosophy is grounded in legalism and moral duty. In his Doctrine of Right, part of the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant categorically states: “There is… no right to sedition, still less to rebellion, and least of all is there a right against the head of a state… to attack his person or even his life on the pretext that he has abused his authority.” Kant’s rejection of revolution stems from his belief that law is the condition…

Political Memoir

DIPLOMACY: The Scandal at the Bay

Jahanara Nuri 29 April 2025

This article delves into the intricate web of political and social upheaval in Bangladesh, set against a backdrop of international diplomacy and internal strife. Following a scandal that rocked the nation, the narrative captures the tension and chaos that ensued, highlighting the swift actions of the ruling party and the subsequent crackdown on opposition members. The story unfolds through the eyes of the narrator, who reflects on the broader implications of these events, both locally and globally.

29 April 2025

Graffiti-style-artwork-with-the-words-Political-Memoir-and-a-city-skyline-of-Sweden

PART 2 EIGHT In the hours that followed, headlines screamed, advisors, king's party NCP, their street fighting brotherhoods and influencers ─ home and abroad ─ scrambled like startled crows of Dhaka. Spaces in prisons, emptied since July by convicted Islamists and criminals, were now being filled with detainees from the opposition Awami League. The grass pellets of the plain-lands suddenly began revealing deceased bodies, hidden among small bushes and gardens — like decayed morals pouring out from a collapsing social status quo. The air felt thick. Not with dust, nor with smog, but with something slower, heavier. A silence pressed against people's skin. Tension stirred underneath, slipped between tea stalls in narrow lanes, breathed across newsroom floors in Kawran Bazaar, leaned against embassy gates in Baridhara, and spilled like floating things from a vandalised fair of the new year into the restless currents of social media. It threaded from the heart of the Delta to places the stars barely knew.

Something quieter set in. Something had shifted. Something had begun. Between official denials and unofficial panics, I found myself stepping out of the noise and into something else entirely. A slower current. A deeper breath to pause. The kind of pause that comes just before time changes shape─softly, almost imperceptibly─and no one notices until the change is visible. In Delta, that March morning was warmer─the kind where rickshaw bells ring like distant memories, and in the gloomy air of dawn, people begin to miss the sight of tea steam rising as it does in winter ─ like incense offered before a headless god, a haunting symbol of the ongoing wave of temple attacks across the country. But here, far away, the cold made a different kind of presence. I cracked open the French window of a flat the Swedes call a lägenhet, and an emboldened icy air froze me almost instantly. My hot lal cha was moments away from freezing.…

Analysis, Bangladesh, Current Affairs, India, Opinion, Pakistan, Politics, Secularism, War

A Region Unravels: From the Indus to the Bay of Bengal, the Secular Order Faces Its Greatest Test

Iconus Clustus 25 April 2025

The Indus Treaty has collapsed. The Shimla Agreement lies suspended. From Pakistan’s proxy warfare to Bangladesh’s creeping Islamism and great power maneuvering, South Asia is entering not just a geopolitical spiral—but a civilizational eclipse. What we’re witnessing is the slow disintegration of the pluralist soul that once defined this region.

25 April 2025

I. Introduction: The Breaking of a Compact When India suspended the Indus Waters Treaty following the terror attack in Pahalgam—carried out by The Resistance Front (TRF), a group with clear operational and ideological ties to Pakistan's deep state—it did more than nullify a water-sharing agreement. It shattered one of the few remaining symbols of post-Partition cooperation between the two nuclear-armed rivals. For decades, the treaty withstood wars, diplomatic breakdowns, and public rage. That it should now collapse in response to yet another incident of state-proxied terror speaks volumes—not only about India’s strategic posture but about the region’s crumbling secular compact. Now, that compact has fractured even further. In a retaliatory gesture of its own, Pakistan has suspended the Shimla Agreement (1972)—a foundational accord that once governed diplomatic protocols, bilateralism, and conflict resolution between India and Pakistan. If the Indus Waters Treaty was the hydrological pillar of cooperation, the Shimla Agreement was its diplomatic spine. Together, these two treaties formed the

last architecture of mutual restraint between nuclear neighbors. Their dual collapse signals a freefall into a pre-1970s strategic environment—one where war, not negotiation, is again the default setting. However, to treat the Treaty’s dissolution as a bilateral escalation alone would be myopic. It is better understood as the tremor before a regional quake. From the Indus in the West to the Bay of Bengal in the East, a new geopolitical alignment is taking shape—an alignment that threatens to undo the fragile, secular, and postcolonial order that had once offered a vision of stability. Across South Asia, terror proxies are resurgent, Islamist politics is infiltrating interim governments, and foreign powers are circling zones of instability under the guise of humanitarian concern. India, at the heart of it all, finds itself in a two-front dilemma. In the West, Pakistan continues to serve as an incubator for transnational jihadist ambitions. In the East, Bangladesh’s descent into political instability and Islamist resurgence—combined with creeping…

Bangladesh, Dr Yunus, Journalism, Liberation War, Politics, Secularism

Shahriar Kabir’s Pen Refused to Bow

Sherlock Holmes 22 April 2025

The Yunus regime stands condemned for unjustly imprisoning freedom fighter Shahriar Kabir, a steadfast symbol of secularism, on baseless charges. He is enduring torture behind bars and being denied critical medical care after experiencing a cardiac arrest. His plight underscores the blatant cruelty of this unconstitutional government, which serves the interests of war criminals and extremist leaders.

22 April 2025

It has been more than seven months1 since Shahriar Kabir, an eminent writer, journalist, filmmaker and intellectual of Bangladesh, was arrested by the unconstitutional interim Government2 led by Dr. Muhammad Yunus on false allegations. Unlike him, during this despicable Yunus regime, many journalists, writers and political-cultural activists are either behind bars, indicted on false accusations or flying the coop3. In the last seven months of 75-year-old Shahriar Kabir's imprisonment, he, who cannot move without a wheelchair, has faced grim conditions as Yunus's phoney Government shows a complete lack of rule of law, resembling the law of the jungle. Futility in case filing, multiple impertinent remands, hare-brained judicial process, and naked violation of the Prisons Act of Bangladesh are pointed out. Significantly, the Yunus Government is going ape to hinder the basic treatment process of Shahriar Kabir, which is considered a fundamental responsibility of the state according to the de jure constitution of Bangladesh. Even after the second cardiac arrest of

Shahriar Kabir in jail4, the Yunus Government fiddled with the treatment. The corporate media has not reported, editorialised, post-editorialised, or discussed Shahriar Kabir's sufferings in newspapers or on talk shows, and there is no patina of so-called intellectuals' or human rights organisations' statements. Only social media activists, secular bloggers, and a single news portal, BD Digest, have broken Yunus's iron curtain against the media5 to crack the news and are up in arms about the megalomaniac Yunus administration. Shahriar Kabir, a freedom fighter in Bangladesh's Liberation War in 1971, dedicated his life to promoting and preserving the spirit of Bangladesh's liberation movement. He has been dry behind his ears for five decades of Bengali children's literature6. Being a nonpareil storyteller, his hearkening back to the wartime memoir and the bedrock of 1971 and writing in pellucid prose for young minds becomes the panacea for all communal and compromised ills. In his novels and short stories written for children, the fastidious…